Drones or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) may be used for surveillance, inspections, surveys, disaster relief operations, and aerial imaging. Typically, flight parameters of the drones are remotely controlled by an operator from a ground station, alternatively the drone may be configured to fly autonomously (controlled by an on-board computer based on some pre-programmed instructions).
Each drone includes a payload having a payload frame and at least one payload module, such as cameras, cargo, and communication units, associated with the payload frame. Generally, the payload may have different physical properties, such as weight, volume and moment of inertia, based on the type of payload module associated therewith. Also, different payload may include different physical properties. Further, for many operations the payload configuration may need to be frequently changed between the flights for example by selecting a specific combination of sensors for each flights. Therefore, different construction and configuration of such payloads can substantially influence flight parameters when used with a same drone. Further, if the flight parameters are not defined or configured properly, the operation of the drone may become difficult either when manually operated or programmed to fly in auto-pilot mode. Further, a discrepancy of the flight parameters and the actual payload characteristics may cause override or underdrive response in automated flight control causing for example oscillations potentially destroying and crashing the drone or a failure to change the flight trajectory. These problems pose the risk of aviation accident, ground or air collisions and losing the control of the aircraft. Moreover, the payload modules may include functional components of duplicate nature, i.e. same functional components present in more than one payload module. For example, remote communication means may be present in more than one payload module; otherwise such communication means may be present in the drone itself. This duplicate nature of the functional components may increase an overall weight of the drone, which may further influence the flight parameters during configuration thereof.
Therefore, in light of the foregoing discussion, there exists a need to overcome the aforementioned drawbacks associated with configuration of the flight parameters of the drones.